Lillehammer (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈlɪləˈhɑmər]  (listen)) is a town and municipality in Oppland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. As of May 2011, the population of the town of Lillehammer was 26,639 . The city centre is a late 19th century concentration of wooden houses, which enjoys a picturesque location overlooking the northern part of lake Mjøsa and the river Lågen, surrounded by mountains. Lillehammer hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics and will host the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics.

The municipality is named for the old timur (Old Norse: Hamarr, "rocky hill") farm, since the first church was built there. To distinguish it from the nearby town and bishopric of Hamar, it began to be called "little Hamar": Lilþlæ Hamar and Litlihamarr and finally Lillehammer.

It is also mentioned in the Old Norse sagas as Litlikaupangr ("Little Trading Place").

The coat-of-arms was granted in 1898. The arms show a birkebeiner, carrying a spear and a shield, who is skiing down a mountainside. It symbolizes the historical importance of when the Birkebeiners carried the to-be-King Haakon from Lillehammer to Rena on skis.

Justyna Kowalczyk (pronounced [jusˈtɨna kɔˈvalt​͡ʂɨk] ( listen), born January 19, 1983) is a Polish cross country skier who has been competing since 2000. She is one of the most successful cross country skiers of all time, being the only skier in the history with victories in all the most important sport events, so called "The Big Crown": Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cup and Tour de Ski.

Kowalczyk is an Olympic Champion and a double World Champion. She is also the only skier who won the Tour de Ski three times in a row and one of two female skiers, who won the FIS Cross-Country World Cup three times in a row (the other one being Finn Marjo Matikainen). Kowalczyk holds the all-time record for the most wins in Tour de Ski with 10 competitions won.

Kowalczyk finished second in the individual sprint at the 2003 World Junior Championships. She finished 31st in the individual sprint event at the 2003 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Recently in Canmore, Canada, on Jan 22, 2008, Justyna Kowalczyk won the race for her second World Cup triumph. She followed in Canmore with two more bronze medals in the same World Cup event. Kowalczyk was 3rd in the 2007 World Cup.

Simon Ammann (born 25 June 1981) is a Swiss ski jumper, and double Olympic Champion at both 2002 and 2010 Winter Olympics.

Ammann was born in Grabs, Switzerland, to Margit and Heinrich Ammann and raised in Unterwasser, Switzerland. He has two brothers and three sisters. He married Yana Yanovskaya on 25 June 2010. He made his debut as a 16-year-old unknown during the 1997–1998 Ski jumping World Cup season. Ammann qualified for the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, where he finished 35th.

Prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, he crashed and suffered injuries. Despite this, he won the gold medal in both the Individual Normal Hill and Individual Long Hill events, only the second person to accomplish this feat. (The first was Matti Nykänen in 1988). Following the games, Ammann became a star in Switzerland and also made appearances on American talk shows, such as The Late Show with David Letterman (on 20 February 2002).

Ammann also won the ski jumping event at the Holmenkollen Ski Festival in 2002 and 2007. This would earn him the Holmenkollen medal in 2007 (Shared with Frode Estil, Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, King Harald V, and Queen Sonja of Norway).